The vertical slash of light appeared and widened; the taint pounded inside him again, worse than before; the ground seemed to beat at the soles of the boots.

Half a dozen Aiel leaped through, and the three Ogier followed with a haste that was not at all unseemly in the circumstances. Rand paused, looking back over the ruined city. He had promised to let the Maidens die for him.

As the last of the Aiel went through, Sulin hissed, and he glanced at her, but she was looking at his hand. At the back of his hand, where his fingernails had sliced a gash that oozed blood. Wrapped in the Void as he was, the pain might have belonged to someone else. The physical mark did not matter; it would heal. He had made deeper inside, where no one could see. One for each Maiden who died, and he never let them heal.

"We are done here," he said, and stepped through the gateway into the Two Rivers. The throbbing vanished with the gateway.

Frowning, Rand tried to orient himself. Placing a gateway precisely was not easy where you had never been before, but he had picked a field he did know, a weedy meadow a good two-hour walk south of Emond’s Field that no one ever used for anything. In the lurid twilight he could see sheep, though, a sizable flock, and a boy with a crook in his hands and a bow on his back, staring at them from a hundred paces. Rand did not need the Power in him to tell the boy was goggling, as well he might. Dropping the crook, he set off running for a farmhouse that had not been there when Rand was last here. A tile-roofed farmhouse.

For a moment Rand wondered whether he was really in the Two Rivers at all. No, the feel of the place told him he was. The smell of the air shouted home. All those changes Bode and the rest of the girls had told him about – they had not really sunk in; nothing ever really changed in the Two Rivers. Should he send the girls back here, back home? What you should do is stay clear of them. It was an irritable thought.

"Emond’s Field is that way," he said. Emond’s Field. Perrin. Tam might be there, too, at the Winespring Inn, with Egwene’s parents. "That is where Loial should be. I don’t know if you can make it before dark. You might ask at the farmhouse. I’m sure they will give you a place to sleep. Don’t tell them about me. Tell no one how you came." The boy had seen but a boy’s tale might well be taken for exaggeration when Ogier appeared.

Adjusting the bundles on their backs, Haman and Covril exchanged looks, and she said, "We will say nothing of how we came. Let people make the stories they wish."

Haman stroked his beard and cleared his throat. "You must not kill yourself."

Even in the Void, Rand was startled. "What?"

"The road ahead of you," Haman rumbled, "is long, dark, and, I very much fear, bloodstained. I also very much fear that you will take us all down that road. But you must live to reach the end of it."

"I will," Rand replied curtly. "Fare you well." He tried to put some warmth into that, some feeling, but he was not sure he succeeded.

"Fare you well," Haman said, and the women echoed it before all three turned toward the farmhouse. Not even Erith sounded as if she believed he would, though.

A moment longer Rand stood there. People had appeared outside the house, watching the Ogier approach, but Rand stared north and west, not toward Emond’s Field, but toward the farm where he had grown up. When he turned away and opened a gateway to Caemlyn, it was like tearing his own arm off. The pain was a much more suitable memorial for Liah than a scratch.

Chapter 22

(Dice)

Heading South

The five stones made a smoothly spinning circle above Mat’s hands, one red, one blue, one clear green, the others striped in interesting ways. He rode on, guiding Pips with his knees, the black-hafted spear thrust behind the saddle girth on the opposite side from his unstrung bow. The stones made him think of Thom Merrilin, who had taught him to juggle, and he wondered whether the old fellow was still alive. Probably not. Rand had sent the gleeman haring after Elayne and Nynaeve what seemed a very long time ago now, supposedly to look out for them. If any two women needed looking out for less, Mat did not know them, but no two were more likely to get a man killed because they would not listen to reason. Nynaeve, poking into everything a man did or said or thought and tugging her bloody braid at a fellow all the time, and Elayne the bloody Daughter-Heir, thinking she could get her way by sticking her nose in the air and telling you what for as bad as Nynaeve ever did, only Elayne was worse, because if frosty high-handedness failed, Elayne smiled and flashed her dimple and expected everybody to fall down because she was pretty. He hoped Thom had managed to survive their company. He hoped they were all right too, but he would not mind if they had found themselves in the pickling kettle at least once since scurrying off to the Light knew where. Let them see what it was like without him to haul them out, and never an honest word of thanks when he was there to do it. Not too hot a kettle, mind – just enough to make them wish Mat Cauthon were around to rescue them again like an idiot.

"What about you, Mat?" Nalesean asked, reining closer. "Did you ever think what it would be like to be a Warder?"

Mat nearly dropped the stones. Daerid and Talmanes looked at him, sweaty-faced and waiting an answer. The sun was sliding toward the horizon; not long before they would have to stop. Twilight seemed to last a little longer as the days shortened, but Mat wanted to be settled in with his pipe by dusk. Besides, in terrain like this, horses broke legs once the light failed. So did men.

The Band stretched out northward behind them, horse and foot beneath a rising tail of dust, banners flying but drums silent, across low hills covered with sparse scrub and scattered thickets. Eleven days since leaving Maerone, and they were halfway to Tear or a little better, moving faster than Mat had really hoped for. And only one full day spent resting the horses. He was certainly in no hurry to take Weiramon’s place, but he could not help wondering how much distance they couldcover between sunup and sundown if they had to. So far their best had been forty-five miles, as near as anyone could calculate. Of course, the supply wagons took half the night catching up, but the foot had been making a point lately of showing they could match the horse over the long haul if not the short.

A little farther back and to the east, a band of Aiel crested a tree-fringed rise, running easily and slowly closing the distance. Likely they had been trotting since sunrise, and would until nightfall if not later. If they passed the Band while there was still light to see, it would be encouragement for tomorrow. Whenever Aiel passed them, they seemed ready to try for another mile or two the next day.

A few miles ahead the thickets blended into solid forest again; it would be necessary to drop down closer to the Erinin before they reached that As they crested a hilltop, Mat could see the river, and the five hired riverboats flying the Red Hand. Four more were on their way back to Maerone to reload, mainly with fodder for the horses. What he could not see yet knew were there were the people, some meandering upriver, some down, some changing direction whenever they met a group led by someone with a convincing tongue. A handful had carts, usually pulled by themselves, and a few wagons, but most nothing beyond what they wore on their backs; even the densest brigands had learned there was no point to bothering those. Mat had no idea where they were going and neither did they, yet they were just enough to clog the sorry excuse for a road along the river. Short of clubbing people out of the way, the Band could make much better time up here.